Thursday 17 October 2013

Upcycling...

First of all, welcome to Lisa via Bloglovin.

We have been lucky to ask for and receive a nice gift from the house of my friend B. It is something I have always liked and provided no-one else in the family wanted it, was willing to offer to buy it.

In the end, no-one did want it and we were given it despite offering to give them something, so that was a nice gesture. It is nothing spectacular but B. knew I always liked it and was looking for a replacement for the one we had given away years ago.

She had painted it herself and the colour she had chosen, champagne, went in her new kitchen very well. It doesn't sit so well in our dining room in that colour, so we are in the process of re-painting it.

This is what it looked like when it arrived:
The cup hooks were removed as they had split the wood when inserted. The front of the two shelves had new moulded edges put on. It was taken apart into its component bits and everything removed off each of those that could be. Handles, hinges, magnet clips, dowel caps etc.

After a good sanding to remove any loose paint, big areas of raw wood had their first coat of primer. Once that was dry, the previously painted areas (excluding the inside which had never been painted) had primer painted onto them. Although we had some paint left over from doing the dining room, we didn't want it in exactly the same colour. We felt it needed to stand out slightly without shouting that it was there.

In the end we chose a crown paint matt emulsion dapple blue:
Ours walls are painted in this colour:
As you can imagine, neither colour is represented very well here and the dapple blue is neither that dark nor that grey. The wall colour is also slightly more blue than the above! Anyway, herewith units after one coat of the dapple blue:

As mentioned previously, the inside of the drawers and cupboards were not originally painted so we are leaving them. The colour looks rather pale here as it is being painted in one of the south facing bedrooms. The dining room faces east so its colour changes throughout the day.

We will transfer the cutlery tray from a kitchen drawer into one of these drawers. This will help to alleviate the lack of space in our three rather shallow kitchen drawers. We may (or may not) also line the base and shelves in the leftover tablecloth from when we made our unit cushion cover for the conservatory.




12 comments:

  1. I'm really looking forward to seeing it finished and filled with lovely things - you will put a piccy on here, won't you?

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  2. When you're done could you just pop down to Suffolk and give my pine dresser a colour change too!

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    1. Ha! It was a little more involved than we thought, particularly the waxing but all in all, no more than 2 weeks on and off.

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  3. What a lovely dresser.. can't wait to see it finished.
    Julie

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    1. We are pleased with it and the finished photograph will be up soon.

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  4. I'm so envious! I would love a kitchen dresser but sadly have a fitted kitchen with no room for one. One day I imagine when we hopefully downsize I will get one and cram it full of lovely china and knick knacks!! Yours will be lovely Im sure, it will be nice to see it finished and 'dressed'.

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    1. This will be in our dining room - no space at all in the kitchen for a free standing unit.

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  5. It's lovely! So nice for you to have something of B's that you always admired, and which you'll appreciate, use and enjoy. I'm looking forward to seeing the 'ta-da' pictures. x

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    1. Ta da pictures soon! I pat it when I walk past and say "thank you B." xx

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  6. This looks really good DC and I love the colour. When I think of all the furniture I've had in my time and given it away to charity shop etc it makes me want to cry. We had an oak dresser in our dining room that we couldn't sell and had to practically beg the charity shop to take it off our hands. This was about 17 years ago, years before turning stuff into vintage/shabby chic became fashionable. I'd give my right hand to have it back now!
    Patricia x

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